Free Autumn's Wish by Bella Thorne Page A

talking to him yet?” Future Me asks.
    “Little bit,” Tee says. “They hate Carrie, but they love the kids.”
    “Maybe you’ll see him at some point,” Reenzie says. “He comes by when he can. It’s just tough with work and helping Carrie with the kids. He doesn’t have a lot of time.”
    I can barely take this all in before slow footsteps get my attention and I turn to see David, Sean’s oldest brother. Like Sean, all three of his older brothers were football players, and David’s a hulking mass of pale, unshaven guy. He walks with his head down, an unruly three-day stubble crawling over his face.
    So it’s Sean. Whatever’s going on here, it’s happening to Sean.
    I almost don’t want to learn. I want the locket to zip me home before I find out what horrible thing happened to him in this new future I created.
    Reenzie walks right up to David and gives him a huge hug. I’m not sure if she and Sean are a couple in this future, but it doesn’t matter. Reenzie’s and Sean’s families are so close she’s like a sister to him. After the hug, she takes his hand and he holds it gratefully.
    “You can come in for a bit,” he croaks. “Mom says it’s okay.”
    I stick with the group as they follow David down the maze of white halls and through a door. I have a vague sense of chairs in the room, of Sean’s dad, Paul, and his other brother sitting there, rumpled and gutted and devastated, but mostly all I can focus on is the bed.
    Sean’s there. He’s covered in tubes. They attach to his chest, his throat, his arm, his face. His neck is wrapped in a thick brace. His eyes are closed, and he lies perfectly still. Future Me and my friends are gathering around the bed, but I walk right through them and get next to him. Tears fill my eyes as I lean down to his face.
    “Sean?” I ask. “What happened?”
    He doesn’t answer. He’s asleep. But Sean’s mom fills everyone in, even though I’m sure everyone in this room except me already knows. It’s like she has to say the words anyway, just to know they’re real and this isn’t some horrible nightmare that’ll end any second. She stands by his head, on the other side of the bed from me, and pets his hair gently as she smiles down at him and strains through tears to speak.
    “He was doing so well at FSU,” she says. “Better than anyone thought. They were saying he could have gone to the NFL. Can you believe it? The sack he took…it didn’t even look like anything on TV. They say he’ll never move anything below his neck again, but we know better, right, Sean? We’ll get you the best care, and you’ll be up and walking again, no matter how long it takes.”
    She says something more, but I don’t hear it, because suddenly I’m gone.

I gasp for breath and lean heavily against the brick wall, sliding down until I’m sitting on the cement. I probably look like I’m having a heart attack, but luckily Aventura’s strip mall shoppers are too lost in their own heads to notice.
    I have to undo what I changed,
I think.
I have to find that guy and get him back to meet my mom.
    I jump up and race through the parking lot, ignoring the cars that pull out in front of me. They honk and swerve and it’s amazing I don’t get hit, but I’m not even paying attention to anything but the driver of each car, looking to see if it’s him.
    None of them are. He’s long gone. I stagger back to the line of stores and pull out my phone.
    “It’s so bad, Jenna,” I tell her when I get her on the line. I give her the whole story, then say, “I don’t even get it! Nothing I changed had to do with Sean at all! Why did everything get so bad for him?”
    “It’s that butterfly effect thing,” Jenna says. “Everything we do affects everything else in ways we can’t understand.”
    “Then I should just stop! I shouldn’t change anything! It’s too dangerous!”
    “But you will,” Jenna says calmly. “Just the fact that you saw what you did means you’re